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Naia crouched down next to Ronin, ensuring he was okay. Ronin resembled a ghost after all the blood he’d lost. Being unconscious would at least prevent him from trying anything brash.

“I never pegged you for being as cruel as she.” Naia straightened and spun around to face Cassian. “But it goes to show the length of my stupidity.”

He didn’t seem the least bit taken aback by her outburst. He remained poised, exuding an insufferable air of apathy. The lamplight from the dock shone brightly on his pale, blond hair, and the monochrome of his dark clothes against his light skin was like a dead rosebush in a field of snow.

“Cruelty and ambition are two vastly different things,” he said. “Your mother is extremely volatile. It is what got her cursed in the first place.”

Naia swung her fist at him, and he fluttered into a puff of smoke.

“Careful, Little Goddess,” he purred, “or I might fight back.”

Reappearing a few feet from where he once stood, a shadow streaked across the sharp, ethereal features of his face. “What is the reason you have called me here?”

“Your curse! I must hand over my child to you, don’t I?” A sob tore through Naia’s lips. “Why my child?”

Cassian observed her intently, tilting his head in fascination at her sadness. “Do you know the history of the Himura clan?”

She couldn’t get a word out, crying through her clenched teeth.

He obliged, straightening the cufflinks of his sleeves. “A thousand years ago, a mortal woman and a god had a child, and it accidentally killed its father with its blood. The gods decided to end the life of this child, as they saw it to be a great threat. The clan to which the child belonged to were mages. They fought against the gods, using the child’s blood to kill many of our kind. The Council eventually intervened and, with illusive spells, the clan went into hiding.”

Naia was aware. She’d read about the Himura clan in her studies. It was rumored they were extinct.

Cassian slipped his hands inside the front pockets of his trousers. “The location of their whereabouts was discovered a century later, but by that time, the demigod child had already passed. Not willing to take any risks, the gods massacred their bloodline, save for two—a young girl and an adolescent boy.”

Naia sniveled, wiping her wet cheeks with the heel of her palm.

“As the last remaining genders of their bloodline, the High Goddess of Fate placed them under her protection. To oppose adversaries, she dipped her hand into the blood of the children, proving the clan’s blood did not truly have the power to kill, for they were simply mortals. Though, she writhed on the ground for some time, as it still affects us, much like your precious beloved’s blood does now. But do you know why his blood cannot kill us, Little Goddess?” His brows quirked with a nauseating glimmer in his eyes.

The first child who accidentally killed its father was born a demigod. No other deities would have dared come within a hundred-foot radius of someone from the Himura clan after learning what their blood could do. No other demigod children in the clan would’ve existed?—

Until now.

Her gut lurched.

“No…” she breathed.

“Ah,” Cassian smirked. “Ronin is not a demigod, therefore the power in his blood is not lethal.”

Their child’s blood would be a true poison to deities.

Cassian hung his head back, peering up at the night sky filled with hundreds of dazzling gemstones. “This may not come as a surprise, but I loathe Ruelle. She’s fucked me over time and time again, and I have tried killing her as many times in return. It is a sick game that has gone on for centuries between us, and she always ends up winning. It’s quite vexing. Now, though?” He dropped his chin and his golden eyes flashed on Naia. “Well, I’d say I’ve bested her this time.”

It’s why he agreed to curse Naia to Kaimana. It was all a part of his plan, well aware he would need a reason for her to come and beg for a way out—a prompt for this curse, to hand over her child to him.

In her state of shock and disbelief, she couldn’t help but be amazed at the intricacy of his plotting. His strong hatred for the High Goddess of Fate had nothing to do with her, and yet, she’d been standing in the middle without realizing.

Fool.

Happiness was a mirage, and perhaps it was better for it to remain that way. Basking in its rays of light would only make the darkness that much colder.

“Can you not let me have this one thing?” Tears dripped down her face, the salty drops mixed with her snot running over her lips. “All I want is happiness, Lord Cassian. I have already lost one love. I do not wish to lose another!”

Cassian stalked around her, the toe of his leather shoes inches from Ronin’s head. “Eight hundred years ago, your soul parted from your beloved’s to descend from the Land of Entity and become flesh and bone. Only, you ended up in Kaimana as a goddess, while he was born as a mortal.” He stared down at Ronin. “After his first death, he came to me and pleaded to return to the Mortal Land. Repeatedly. After each of his lifetimes.”

Cassian turned his head to look over his shoulder at her. “He found you once, but I believe you knew him as Kaleo back then—or you found him.”

It felt as if her heart had given out, like the sand beneath her feet was being sucked back into the sea. She fell to her knees. Her hands came up into her hair as she choked out a mangled cry.